Understanding Level of Illness

It is important to understand how patient populations differ between hospitals when looking at quality data. The severity of illness, or how sick patients are, at each hospital will have some impact on overall patient outcomes. Severity of illness is also called acuity. A standard measure to compare patients' severity of illness between hospitals is called the Case Mix Index (CMI).

Packard Children’s Hospital had the highest CMI in the country between October 2009 - September 2010. In other words, Packard Children’s Hospital cares for some of the sickest children in the country. We maintain very positive outcomes compared to other children’s hospitals that see less sick children. Please visit the Quality and Safety Data section for more details of how we perform.